MAIDU 

 By Roland B. Dixon 



§ 1. DISTRIBUTION AND DIALECTS 



The Maidu (or Pujunan) stock comprises the various dialects of the 

 language spoken by a body of Indians in northeastern Cahfornia. 

 The region occupied by these Indians is a continuous single area, 

 lying partly in the Sacramento valley and partly in the Sierra 

 Nevada mountains. It may be roughly described as extending from 

 the Cosumnes river in the south to a line drawn from Chico, through 

 Lassen's Butte, to Susanville in the north, and from the Sacramento 

 river eastward to the eastern base of the Sierra. The neighboring 

 languages are, on the north the Achomawi-Atsugewi (Shastan) and 

 Yana, on the west the Wintun (Copehan), on the south the Miwok 

 (Moquelumnan), and on the east the Washo and Paiute (Shoshonean) . 

 Of these the Wintun and Shoshonean show the clearest morphological 

 resemblances to the Maidu. 



The Maidu language is spoken in three dialects, differing from one 

 another more morphologically than lexically or phonetically, although 

 differences of this sort, of course, occur. In general these morpho- 

 logical differences are in the direction of the morphological type of 

 the languages of the other stocks with which the Maidu are in 

 contact; the northwestern dialect most resembling the Wintun; 

 the northeastern, the Achomawi-Atsugewi; and the southern, the 

 Miwok. The northwestern dialect is spoken in that part of the 

 Sacramento valley occupied by the stock, which lies north of the Yuba 

 river, and also in the foothills adjoining, up to an elevation of about 

 three thousand feet. It shows some minor variations within itself in 

 the way of subdialects, these differences being as a rule, however, 

 very slight. The northeastern dialect is spoken in the region of the 

 high, flat-floored mountain valleys extending from Big Meadows in 



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